1. Field of the Invention
The present application generally relates to medical devices, systems and methods, and more particularly relates to illumination of a surgical opening during a procedure. More specifically, the present application relates to anchoring of an illumination element to the tissue, surgical draping or other adjacent surgical equipment so that the illumination element is easily anchored to tissue or surgical drapes or other adjacent surgical equipment and preferably without requiring attachment to surgical instruments such as retractor blades. This allows the illumination element to be easily positioned and repositioned in the surgical field intra-operatively without basing its location on the position of retractors or other surgical instruments to which illumination is typically attached to.
Current commercial surgical illumination devices for illuminating surgical fields are often limited to devices that attach to retractor blades or retractor frames. Some are permanently attached and some are detachable. However, there are situations when the retractor or frame may not be convenient for attachment of the illumination device thereto. That happens when the retractor or frame is not positioned right over the specific area of interest, or the coupling mechanism between the illumination device and the retractor or frame may be too cumbersome to use. Since the retractor is often moved during the surgical procedure, this can interfere with illumination of the surgical field provided by the illumination device. Moreover, it may be advantageous to have a drop in illuminator that simply anchors to tissue adjacent the wound and that can be easily dropped into the incision for illumination of the surgical field. Such a device is preferably easy to anchor to the patient or adjacent surgical equipment such as surgical drapes, and may be effortlessly positioned and repositioned thereby allowing a surgeon to easily illuminate different parts of the surgical field during a surgical procedure. Thus it would be desirable to provide illumination devices that can be dropped into a surgical field for illumination thereof and easily anchored. Sometimes it is also desirable to anchor the illumination devices without requiring connection to a retractor or retractor frame. At least some of these objectives will be satisfied by the embodiments disclosed in this specification.
2. Description of the Background Art
There are currently several technologies commercially available that use an illuminator as a stand-alone technology to provide illumination without attaching to a surgical instrument. The most common is an illumination device used during a vetrictomy ophthalmology procedure. In these procedures, a small light pipe is inserted through the eye to allow the surgeon to observe the procedure with a microscope.
Another technology commercially available is in the dental space, where an illuminator that drops into the mouth provides lighting for the dentist. The device is not anchored and can easily move around and get in the way. The patient must bite down on the device in order to anchor it and this can be uncomfortable for the patient. For surgical procedures, most other currently available devices are mounted/attached to surgical instruments used during the procedure and that are adjacent the patient. Thus it would be desirable to provide a more versatile illumination device or system that overcomes some of these challenges. At least some of these objectives will be met by the embodiments disclosed herein.